Look out toward Space
by Persephone Kore
Summary: Master Jocasta Nu and Padawan Tallisibeth Scout EnwandungEsterhazy meet in the Archives and give each other a few things to think about.


**Look out toward Space**

Red light poured in through the windows, washing the storage banks and study tables in a blaze of color. It made Master Jocasta Nu think first of blaster fire, then of firelight on planets where beings still built open fires for warmth and welcome, and only last -- curiously enough -- of Sith lightsabers.

But it was only Coruscant turning the Jedi Temple away from the sun to look out toward space.

Jocasta looked away from the statues of the Lost Twenty, washed in imaginary blood, and began a slow circuit of the Archives. They weren't closing -- they never _closed_ -- but it was only courteous to leave everything in good order as she turned her duties over to the crepuscular and nocturnal Archivists.

If she didn't leave after a standard duty shift, she'd wind up obsessively scanning the Archive datalogs for evidence of more deletions. After the last time, Master Yoda had hit her over the head with a datapad, and she had somehow ducked in the wrong direction and nearly concussed herself on the corner of a data terminal. Yoda's irritability wasn't a great concern, but her own lack of coordination had been a convincing argument for better self-discipline. A Jedi could go a considerable length of time without sleep, given necessity and the support of the Force, but the Force did not offer a great deal of support for dwelling irrationally on past failures.

Her peripheral vision caught a height where there shouldn't be one -- a small tower of resources stacked on a table. Jocasta sighed to herself, wondering why Jedi didn't seem to grasp that maintaining the order of the galaxy included maintaining the order of the information about it. She was nearly to the table before an adolescent human girl, long red hair tied back except for the braid dangling by her ear, came hurrying back to it. "I'm sorry, Master Nu -- I only meant to leave it for a moment. I promise I'll clean up when I'm done."

"If you're still using it, don't worry." Jocasta studied the girl for a moment. She was sure she recognized her, but so many Jedi came through the Archives (less than usual, lately) that there was a non-negligible search time to identify most of them. This one was in a lot, so it didn't take very long. "Padawan Esterhazy, isn't it?" she asked at last. "You usually are good about cleaning up after yourself."

A small, quick smile. "I try, Master Nu."

"You look tired." Redheads showed pallor easily, even in the flush of sunset, and Esterhazy's green eyes had shadows under them.

"Lately, who doesn't? I've just been... keeping busy." Her hands were busy now, rearranging references. Several light scars marked them, though the damage from that rather _memorable_ Apprentice Tournament where she'd used her hand on a low-powered lightsaber blade was nearly invisible. She must not bother with bacta for the small injuries.

"Trying to impress someone?"

Esterhazy looked up swiftly, paler than before and then suddenly flushing red. "Well, I wouldn't mind, but nobody specific. I understand that there aren't really enough Knights and Masters to fight the war and still deal with inexperienced Padawans."

Jocasta gave her a sad smile. "That sounded a bit rehearsed, but it's true." She sat down at the table, peering at Esterhazy through the slender gap between two stacks of documents. "I suppose those of us remaining at the Temple do have a better chance of _surviving_ the war, but you want to be out there helping, don't you?"

"I wasn't much help to Master Jai," Esterhazy said softly. "The one mission we went on, I got tangled up with some battle droids while he--" She closed her mouth on anything else that might have emerged; Jocasta thought it probably would not have been words.

Jocasta extended a hand across the table, ever so gently nudging the stacks aside and balancing them with a touch of the Force to make sure they didn't topple. She stopped well short of touching Esterhazy's arm, and the girl didn't move toward her. Jocasta drummed her fingers. "Every Jedi who has served in this war," she said softly, "has seen a comrade fall and been unable to prevent it."

If she closed her eyes, she could hear the girl's heartbeat; if she opened them, she could see the flutter-throb of a pulse under a freckle-dusted jaw. At last Esterhazy said, "Do you want to be out there?"

Jocasta caught her breath, feeling as if something sharp had plucked at the bottom of her lungs. "Not really. That's no virtue of acceptance, in my case. It only makes me sick to think of because I used to think Count Dooku was a friend." A thin, angry smile pulled at her mouth. "He said a few times that it was foolish to trust, wise to expect betrayal even from a friend. Maybe I should have listened."

Esterhazy looked up at that, and her fingers fluttered briefly toward Jocasta's. "You don't believe that," she said. "That's no way to live." She then added hastily, "Master Nu."

She looked as if she might apologize, left hanging any longer, and Jocasta sighed and forestalled her. "No. You're right. I let myself speak bitterly." She shook her head sharply and reached back for something from before the conversation had gone astray. "There will still be too few Knights and Masters once the war is over," she mused, "and adding to them through the usual means will go slowly. The Council might have to look into some adjustments to the training methods."

If Esterhazy thought the change of subject strange, she still accepted it with barely a blink. "I guess you'd know what the precedents are." Her eyebrows drew together, deepening the shadows beneath her eyes. "You know, I feel as if there ought to be something useful I can do. Not just -- just stay here and take up space. I'm almost sixteen now. I was barely still eligible when Master Chankar took me, but I only had a little over three months with her and two _weeks_ with Master Jai." She shook her head. "I don't want to be impatient, but it seems like the Jedi would have been putting up with me for an awfully long time before I get good enough to be really useful on most missions."

"You take comm duty, don't you?" Jocasta said. Many of the responsible Padawans had taken up comm duty and other such tasks at the understaffed Temple. She'd been at something of a loss what to do with them when several of the junior Archivists had left for battle and she had been presented with a collection of adolescents instead. But they were doing well. They were Jedi too, after all.

"Yes. It's not the same, though."

"No." A short silence. "Have you considered the Service Corps, for experience?"

Esterhazy's eyes widened and her eyebrows went up. "Master Nu," she said, clearly trying hard to sound respectful in spite of the incredulity spilling into her voice, "I've spent most of the past three years trying to stay _out_ of the Corps!"

Jocasta almost, almost smiled. "The Corps are a very honorable way to serve the galaxy, you know."

"So everybody keeps telling me," Esterhazy said, "or anyway they used to say it a lot. But it's still where they send you if you're not good enough to be a Jedi. I don't want to be a farmer, Master Nu. I know crops are important, but it's not like I'm especially better at plants than anything else. I want to make it as a Jedi. I want to help people and go to different stars."

Jocasta let that hang in the air until the younger woman looked down again, the defiance running out of her. "The Agricultural Corps may have preserved more lives since its comparatively recent founding than the Jedi have over our millennia," Jocasta said mildly. "It's a shame that we've let it come to be seen as a consequence of failure. And I could tell you that Jedi are not to seek adventure... but I would also have to tell you that adventure was part of what I sought when I left with the Exploration Corps for the Unknown Regions."

After a long pause, Esterhazy admitted, "I've never really thought about the other Corps that much. I figured if nobody picked me I'd end up in AgriCorps, and that was pretty much it."

"You might have. It is the largest. On the other hand, you already said you don't have much of an affinity for plants, and I understand you do have an affinity for observation, thinking on your feet, and somewhat unorthodox solutions. Strength in the Force isn't essential for the Exploration Corps, but it doesn't hurt either. They and the Diplomatic Corps probably have missions that most resemble the usual Jedi mission, if the term 'normal' can even be applied. Normal when the galaxy isn't at war, anyway."

"I guess that does pretty much skew everything." Esterhazy looked up again. "I'll think about that, Master Nu. If you think I could be useful to ExplorCorps... maybe I should ask if they need anyone."

Jocasta rose. Her lightsaber shifted against her hip, but she didn't mention that she had used it more in association with the Exploration Corps than through most of the rest of her life. She suspected Esterhazy was hoping to get out of any further conversation about the Service Corps, but the Padawan really would think about what she'd said, all the same. "I've little doubt they do. They're short-handed at the moment as well, especially of Jedi volunteers." A sad smile. "Which is unfortunate. At the moment, the Corps may be able to behave more like Jedi than the Jedi."

They had turned farther away from the sun as they talked. The red of sunset was gone, replaced by deepening shadow wherever the artificial lighting didn't reach. Jocasta walked away to finish her interrupted walk, pacing deliberately through each section of the Archives, winding her way out and down.

She stopped at the last window before the exit, where the Archives' spire loomed above and behind her, as if she stood between a friendly giant's feet. She stared out, not toward the reflective sky but at the lights of Coruscant itself. The little false stars stretched away from her, across the surface and deep down, level under level. A bit of white caught her eye: some locally stationed clone troopers were drilling.

Jocasta's mind drifted back to poor deleted Kamino.

Perhaps those who stayed home were no safer. The Sith had long since reached the Temple.


End file.
